The 4 Principles of Designing Actionable Professional Development
Why do our PD efforts result in little change?
Have you ever spent hours planning PD and poured your heart into facilitating an engaging session, only to find that in the days and weeks after there was no change in instruction?
Were all the Powerpoint animations, collaboration protocols, handouts, research articles, and graphic organizers all for naught?
Shifting from Student Learning to Teacher Action
Before becoming an instructional coach, you were a standout teacher. Now, your impact extends across multiple classrooms by empowering and supporting teachers. You excelled in facilitating student learning, but now you must excel in facilitating teacher action.
You excelled in facilitating student learning, but now you must be excel in facilitating teacher action.
While many pedagogical and teaching practices are transferable, there are two key differences that make teacher action different than student learning.
- Teacher learning is assessed by actions and outcomes (classroom practice) not by knowledge and skills (tests and quizzes).
- Teachers are adults not children
The good news is that there is established research on how best to facilitate impactful adult learning.
The 4 Principles of Adult Learning
Martin Knowles identified four essential principles that drive impactful adult learning
- Adults need to be involved in the planning and evaluation of their instruction.
- Experience (including mistakes) provides the basis for the learning activities.
- Adults are most interested in learning subjects that have immediate relevance and impact to their job or personal life.
- Adult learning is problem-centered rather than content-oriented.
From The Adult Learning Theory: Andragogy of Malcom Knowles (Pappas 2013)
Why Design for Action?
At Goalbook, we feel a shared mission with instructional coaches in that we both want to empower educators to transform instruction.
If you are an instructional coach that is working to make instructional change in your school or district, we’d love to invite you to join the Design for Action community by subscribing below.
